downtown phoenix events
From the Wire | Film Screening Explores History and Benefits of Urban Parks
Posted on 1/11/12 by DPJ Staff » No Comments
(From the Wire includes press releases received from reliable sources that help tell the story of the many happenings in Greater Downtown Phoenix. Yep, they are ripped from our inbox.)
A documentary on the urban park development movement titled “Olmsted and America’s Urban Parks” will be the subject of a free, public screening at Civic Space Park’s A.E. England Building, 424 N. Central Ave. (map), on Jan. 12 at 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 5:30.
Franklin Park, the last park created by Frederick Law Olmsted.
The documentary explores the park architecture of Frederick Law Olmsted and the evolution and history of urban park development in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. The event will also feature the TED talk short video by artist Janet Echelman about her work, including Civic Space Park’s signature art piece, “Her Secret Is Patience.”
Viewers also will be able to meet one of the filmmakers of the Olmsted documentary, Rebecca Messner, and participate in a short presentation and discussion on local and national Red Field to Green Fields initiative to convert economically depressed “red” private property (residential, commercial and industrial) into public park property “green.”
The screening is a presentation of No Festival Required’s Building Community Cinema series with the support of the Speedwell Foundation, the City Parks Alliance, Arizona State University, Butler Housing Company, Phoenix Community Alliance, Phoenix Parks Foundation and the City of Phoenix.
Governor’s Arts Awards Nominations Deadline Extended
Posted on 12/20/11 by DPJ Staff » No Comments
Do you know a Downtown Phoenix artist, school, business or organization that has gone above and beyond in their support of the arts? Then submit a nomination for the 2012 Governor’s Arts Awards by midnight tomorrow, December 21, 2011.
Click here to submit your nomination.
All nominees will be recognized at the award event, and one nominee in each category will receive the Governor’s Arts Award.
The Governor’s Arts Award commemorative medallion.
Nominations will be accepted in the following categories:
Artist
This award recognizes an Arizona artist of significant merit, leadership or renown whose creations or contributions enrich the state and the field of the arts. This category is open to artists of all artistic disciplines.
Arts In Education – Individual
This award recognizes, educators, teaching artists, school administrators or school volunteers that have demonstrated significant support or participation in activities which foster excellence in, appreciation of, or access to arts education in the State of Arizona
Arts In Education – Organization
This award recognizes a nonprofit arts organization or a school that has demonstrated significant support or participation in activities which foster excellence in, appreciation of, or access to arts education in the State of Arizona.
Business
This award recognizes small to large businesses, that have demonstrated significant support through time, energy, expertise and/or financial support or by participation in activities which foster excellence in, appreciation of, or access to the arts throughout the State of Arizona.
Community
This award recognizes a community organization or institution that has demonstrated significant support of or participation in community-based programs or services which foster excellence in, appreciation of, or access to the arts in the State of Arizona. Schools or school districts are not eligible in this category
Individual
This award recognizes an individual for significant contributions to the arts in Arizona in the areas of arts leadership, support, and/or volunteerism.
The 2012 Governor’s Arts Awards will be presented March 27, 2012, at the Herberger Theater Center and are presented annually by the Arizona Citizens for the Arts, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the Office of the Governor.
For more information: www.GovernorsArtsAwards.org
From the Wire | Food City’s 11th Annual Tamale Festival
Posted on 12/09/11 by DPJ Staff » No Comments
(From the Wire includes press releases received from reliable sources that help tell the story of the many happenings in Greater Downtown Phoenix. Yep, they are ripped from our inbox.)
This Saturday, Dec. 10 and Sunday, Dec. 11, Arizona’s finest tamale-makers will help celebrate Food City’s 11th Annual Tamale Festival in Downtown Phoenix.
This culinary food festival and fundraiser, which is FREE and open to the general public, takes place as many families make homemade tamales for the holiday season.
Thousands of attendees will be able to taste and buy a wide selection of homemade tamales, as well as enjoy a variety of booths with jewelry, arts & crafts and much more. The two-day event also will offer live mariachis, ballet folklorico along with other musical entertainment.
Many tamale-makers from local faith-based groups prepare their tamales in church commissaries and then sell them at the Festival to fundraise for their organization. Food City also will be selling tamales, menudo, durros, aguas frescas and champurrado.
If you go
What: Food City’s 11th Annual Tamale Festival
Date: Saturday, Dec. 10 & Sunday, Dec. 11
Time: 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. both days.
Sunday at 2:30 p.m.: After taste-testing tamales, a panel of celebrity judges will name the “Best Tamale,” and Food City will award prizes to the winning tamale-maker.
Where: Washington, between 1st Ave. & 4th Ave. (map)
TEDx Talks Third Places
Posted on 12/08/11 by J. Seth Anderson » 1 Comment
Phoenicians braved the chilly desert Wednesday night, bundled in festive hats and scarves, to meet at the Levine Machine in the Warehouse District downtown for the latest TEDx event.
The theme of the night was “Urban Placemaking and Third Places,” those spots in our communities where we rub elbows with strangers, make new connections and create memories. They are the spaces where “everyone knows your name” and equally charming because you never know whom you’ll bump into. These Third Spaces give a city character. They are necessary to community vitality because they embrace us. As one speaker put it, these spaces make life more humane through the social interactions they provide, the interactions we intuitively crave as human beings.
In his opening remarks, Bob Diehl, one of the organizers of the event (along with Andrew Knochel and Jim McPherson), stated that the Valley of the Sun is at a crossroads.
“How it got here cannot be how it moves forward, unless we want to be left in the dustbin of history. Dialogue will help the city move forward.”
Marianne Belardi
And that’s what TEDx events aim to do through rousing talks from people in the community who are on the front lines changing the landscape and culture of the city. The weather may have been chilly and dark but the Levine Machine felt warm as it was lit up by the power and optimism of bright ideas.
The first speaker of the night, Marianne Belardi gave a talk titled, “People Who Need People.” She reminisced about the Third Places of her youth and the nostalgia they created.
“Third Places offer sustenance with a side of sociability,” she said.
Places like farmers markets, coffee shops, even open mic nights create a place for community connections.
Craig DeMarco
Craig DeMarco, owner of Postino, Windsor, and Churn spoke about urban redevelopment and not taking no for an answer.
He shared a story of a trip through small towns in Italy where he frequently wound up at the local wine bars. Back in Phoenix he searched for the same spaces for a similar experience but found none, so he and his wife set out to create it. They faced challenges from neighborhood opposition and the red tape of the city, but they succeeded by never giving up the dream. Today his business ventures are recognized as some of the best local restaurants in the Valley, unique for purposefully being tied to the history of the neighborhoods where they are located. (The original Postino is housed in the old Arcadia post office building and Windsor is located in an old building tucked into the Windsor Square neighborhood.)
Jeff Fischer
He announced to the attendees that the stretch of Central Avenue north of Camelback near Windsor will have bike lanes added by narrowing Central Avenue from 6 lanes of traffic to 4 to create a more pedestrian friendly environment for the neighborhood.
Jeff Fischer spoke next about his concept for Lux, considered one of the best coffee shops in Phoenix. The only speaker to deliver his remarks sitting down, he spoke in verse with the passion of an artist explaining the nuances of his latest masterpiece. “Lux is a personal confession,” he said.
Margaret Bruning
The evening concluded with speaker Margaret Bruning, the former associate director of Scottsdale Public Art. She spoke about public art as a Third Place because it “becomes a portal for others in the community to create their own experiences.”
“It’s our job to take advantage of our public spaces, private spaces, coffee shops. People crave authenticity to mingle, walk and learn something new.” Along the banks of one of the Valley’s greatest assets, the 131 miles of canals, more pedestrian pathways and public art are being developed because, “that’s the community’s living room.”
The theme for the next TEDxScottsdaleSalon is “Rethinking the Grid” and will be this Saturday from 3:30 to 7 p.m. at the Scottsdale Museum for Contemporary Art.
Photos courtesy of Jeremy Stapleton.
Third Places for the Win
Posted on 12/06/11 by J. Seth Anderson » No Comments
If we learned nothing else from School House Rock it was that three is a magic number. It seems fitting that three Downtown Phoenix advocates organized the upcoming TEDxScottsdaleSalon with the theme of “Urban Placemaking: Design of Third Places.” Maybe three is a magic number after all.
Even though Scottsdale appears in the name, the event is happening in the Warehouse District in Downtown Phoenix at the Levine Machine on Grant Street tomorrow night from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Levine Machine, 605 E. Grant St. http://levinemachine.com/
The organizers Bob Diehl, Andrew Knochel and Jim McPherson decided on a TEDx Salon because the smaller event allows for a more focused theme. This intimate setting provides the audience a better opportunity during intermission and at the end of the night to discuss the ideas presented. TEDx Salons can be weekly or monthly to keep the community engaged between the larger TEDx events.
It was Knochel who came up with the idea of discussing Third Places. These are the places in our lives that are neither work nor home, but those places where we socialize, eat, celebrate, sometimes cry into a beer, and where we meet and share ideas with other people in our communities.
What is about these Third Places that we love? What factors make these places so great that they are memorable enough that we habitually return to them?
“The theme began as the design of Third Places, and morphed into a more broad discussion of Third Places from the proprietors’ perspective,” Knochel explained.
He approached Jeff Fischer, the owner of Lux, Craig DeMarco, co-founder of Postino, Windsor and Churn, as well as Marianne Belardi who helped open and run Cowboy Ciao and Kazimierz in Old Town, and Margaret Bruning who ran Scottsdale’s public art program for many years as associate director of Scottsdale Public Art (she currently serves as Director of Civic Art at Los Angeles County Arts Commission).
DeMarco and Fischer will address the issue of starting a Third Place; Balardi will address the softer, human aspects of commercial Third Places such as design, scale, and location; while Bruning will speak about non-commercial Third Places like public art.
A video of a TEDTalk by Nathaniel Kahn called “My Architect” will be also be shown.
The night is sure to bring out strong ideas and opinions. It’s also a chance to learn more about and to celebrate the great Third Places that already exist in Metro Phoenix.
If you go
TEDxScottsdaleSalon
Date: Wednesday December 7, 2011
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Tickets: $11, available here.
Where: Levine Machine building, 605 E. Grant St. (South of the Chase Field)
